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We travel light, we probe deep, and we strike hard. We're Delta Green, and we may be outlaws and cowboys and fools, but we've kept this green ball of shit safe and sound for longer than most people have been alive.

An acclaimed sourcebook for the famous Call of Cthulhu tabletop roleplaying game, Delta Green tells the story of the eponymous organization, a secret United States agency born of the Federal raid on Innsmouth, Massachusetts in 1929 and tasked to protect the country from paranormal threats. After an operation gone horribly wrong in Cambodia in the '60s, Delta Green was officially shut down — but its leaders, aware of the things lurking in the cracks of reality, continued the fight illegally, stealing resources from the government, carefully picking new members from the federal agents community, and generally acting like rightfully pissed off Cowboy Cops in their battle against the supernatural. It would not be until the 1994 assassination of Major General Reginald Fairfield, Delta Green's de facto leader, than DG would take up their current incarnation: a deeply hidden conspiracy in the labyrinthine world of the United States federal agencies, structured in semi-independent cells.

Delta Green is heavily based on classical conspiracy/UFO theories, meshing them with the Cthulhu Mythos milieu: DG themselves are a spin on The Men in Black, but there are also other shadow agencies involved, including the now famous Majestic 12 group that deals with the Greys (actually Mi-Go in disguise). Other players are the Karotechia, occultist Nazis serving an "ascended" Hitler; the Fate, a criminal organization that makes heavy use of Mythos creatures and spells for fun and profit; SaucerWatch, a naïve yet well-funded UFO research group that may be closer to the truth than they know; and the Cult of Transcendence, among others.

The tone of the book is even bleaker than standard CoC: where the basic game has investigators struggling against Mythos creatures and the cultists that serve them (and DG does include its fair share of battle against these forces) the primary adversaries are evil and/or utterly amoral humans that (attempt to) use the forces of the Mythos for their own benefit, and are becoming as amoral as them. The Stars are Coming Right, and there may not be anything that Delta Green, or anyone else can do about it...

For the other, slightly less depressing, slightly funnier Lovecraft-meets-spy-fiction setting, see The Laundry Files.

In late 2015, a kickstarter was held for a new series of Delta Green sourcebooks. It reached 10 times its expected goal for a total of $300,000 recieved, and new material is expected throughout 2016. The creators have released a PDF copy of a quick start guide, Need to Know for free on their official website.

Brain Food: Agent NANCY is DG's foremost forensic analyst and autopsy expert. She is, in fact, a ghoul, and can obtain knowledge from dead bodies by devouring their brains. All ghouls apparently have this ability.

The Karotechia's Reinhard Galt also has this ability, learned from the Anziques.

Badass Normal: Many NPCs, such as the late Major Fairfield, Captain Forrest James or MJ-12's Adolph Lepus. The PCs can also become this.

Broad Strokes: According to the official site, nothing in Delta Green is canon. instead, they encourage players to use whatever works for their game.

With regards to the original Call of Cthulhu RPG which DG was an expansion for, they change some facets of the gods and monsters. Most notably, Hastur is dramatically different from the more Derleth-inspired Call version.

Deadline News: Phenomen-X, the basic cable conspiracy investigation show, can suffer this. DG is perfectly willing to treat them as canaries in the coal mines to see if the alleged supernatural is actually a threat.

Downer Ending: Delta Green fights the fires it sees, but it's all going downhill. Some modern CoC material hints at possible evacuation to space habitats or the Dreamlands, but nothing positive or canonical.

The Delta Green short story "After Math" details the end of the world through the eyes of an elderly Delta Green agent.

Ghostapo: The Karotechia — at least, what remains of it. An eldery worshipper of Yog-Sothoth, an undead Mad ScientistNecromancer mixing the legacies of both Herbert West and Dr Munoz from Cool Air, a humanitarian ubermensch who gets immortality and invincibility in the bargain, and the "ascended" spirit of Adolf Hitler (at least, they think it's Hitler...)

The real Hitler ordered the former Karotechia to summon Azathoth, in an attempted Taking You with Me against the entire world.

The Government: Many real-life US Federal agencies are provided for PCs to be part of, from familiar ones like the FBI and the DEA to the more obscure like FinCEN or the National Security Council. Countdown extends the roster to a number of foreign agencies.

Alternatively, if you believe one Delta Green Agent: "We're the government conspiracy. Those guys are just the government".

PISCES can be considered a variation as well considering that it's been taken over wholesale by the Shan.

The Greys: The high-tech aliens cutting secret deals with MJ-12 for fun and profit. Of course, they are not what they seem.

Groin Attack: The Skoptsi sect in Russia does this to themselves — all members of the cult must undergo castration.

Gut Feeling: The reason the Mi-Go are so interested in humans is our (to them) unnerving capability to elaborate accurate answers with little information and no clear logic chains of thought.

Infectious Insanity: One of the plots of MJ-12's Project OUTLOOK is to create a "psychological virus", a way of causing a cascading spiral of riots and unrest through manipulation of the media.

Hastur. Unlike vanilla Call of Cthulhu, Hastur is not a God or Old One, but an infectious and pervasive force of decay. Knowing about Hastur or its related mythos trappings allows such decay to happen on a person's psyche.

Interservice Rivalry: All the time between the various real-world agencies. Delta Green and MJ-12 used to have this in the short period where both officially worked for the US government.

A planned new sourcebook will feature a rivalry between two Delta Greens; the Special Access Program, a reactivated, officially sanctioned version, and "the Cowboys", DG Agents who refused to come in from the cold.

Just Before the End: In some level, everyone knows that there is not much time left for humanity. This is why the Mi-Go created the Grey deception: to extract as much information as possible from humans before our time runs out.

Knight Templar: Delta Green agents used to go too far in their quest to both protect the American populace from the supernatural and keep the existence of the latter (and itself) a secret, particularly in the Fairfield era. Some still do.

In the words of one DG agent, "we do the horrific to prevent the apocalyptic". Later in that story, the same agent deliberately, and (we are led to believe) needfully, shoots a baby.

Know When to Fold 'Em: The Deep Ones. In the original sourcebook, it's noted that DG invested much of its efforts from its founding in the wake of Innsmouth until after World War II to hunting down Deep One colonies. As such, the vast majority of them have determined the surface world is now more trouble than it's worth, and only very isolated enclaves remain on the surface.

The creators have alluded to this being the fate of the Mi-Go; they, through the Greys, stopped working with Majestic-12 around the turn of the millennium.

The Mafia: The Fate is New York City's magic-using organized crime cartel.

Make Way for the New Villains: A new sourcebook will feature new threats arising from / with the Global War on Terror, with many old threats no longer relevant. Several other books funded via Kickstarter will deal with what happened to the old threats; including MAJESTIC-12, PISCES, and The Fate.

Rock Me, Asmodeus!: Charnel Dreams is one of the most popular bands in New York City. Their lead singer is the head assassin for the Fate, worships Nyarlathotep, and works Cthulhu Mythos spells into the lyrics of his songs.

Russians with Rusting Rockets: GRU-SV8 was originally portrayed as this, being a mostly-defunct organization operating on a budget that hadn't seen an adjustment since the 1970s.

Sacrificial Lamb: "Friendlies" are those people that support DG's cause but are not fully inducted into the conspiracy. Delta Green maintains a database with full information on each and every one, so that they can be properly "taken care of" if the need arises.

Shown Their Work: The bibliography shows a respectable collection of material regarding world history, UFO folklore, and the praxis of the US intelligence community.

The Sociopath: Adolph Lepus, literally, as he has an antisocial personality disorder.

The War on Terror: A new standalone RPG has been funded on kickstarter, with the goal of updating the Delta Green setting to the modern day, with the War on Terror serving as a backdrop for altered powers of federal law enforcement (including the reactivated Delta Green "Program").

Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Army of the Third Eye are mostly crazed fanatics, but what they fight against is much worse. Delta Green itself can come off as this at times.

World of Chaos: The Hastur Mythos suggests this as an effect of its influence; reality becomes relative to the observer, buildings gain new floors at night, time flows differently. This goes double for Carcosa, the land "governed" by the King in Yellow.

The World Is Always Doomed: Delta Green's unofficial mission is to "delay the inevitable for a few more years" (emphasis ours). They've been at it for the better part of a century.

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